Buyer Analysis
by Irfan Ahamed
1. Guidelines
1.1. Discussions should be related to SE Process
1.2. Ariba Network, Spot Buying, Guided Buying
1.3. Focus on Current buyers
1.4. Subset of Qns for existing buyers
1.5. Max. four or five themes and few qns under every theme
1.6. Go through the Sales to ACO Hand off
2. Stakeholders
2.1. Is there a Project Sponsor?, Senior Management Involved?
2.2. Who from Finance, AP, Procurement, IT involved
2.3. Are there any dedicated resource assigned SE lead?, Project Manager, etc.,?
2.4. Any Partner consulting services involved?
3. Change Management & Compliance
3.1. Is this strategic or tactical Project?
3.2. How Engaged are they?
3.3. Are there any transformation initiative within the Organization? and Is it part of any broader transformation project?
3.4. Senior Management Involved?
3.5. Customer Maturity interms of Understanding of Ariba and their plans for their Organization
3.6. Internal communication and internal Compliance strength
4. Customer Snap Shot
4.1. Who are they? (World leader in packaging materials....
4.2. Market Business Units/Subsidiaries
4.3. Spend Profile & Categories - Services, Direct & Indirect goods
4.4. What SAP Ariba Solutions Sold? & How many years Contract
5. Step 1: Define who the Buyer is....
5.1. Want to Capture negotiated Savings
5.1.1. Value Driver - Cost Savings
5.2. Make sure End users are using preferred suppliers
5.2.1. Value Driver - Spend Compliance
5.3. Manage risks at Supply Base
5.4. Transparency and visibility in to supplier engagement
5.4.1. Value Driver - Process Improvement
6. Step 3: Flight Plan - Strategy Alignment. Eg. prepare Wave Plans, Number of Suppliers and the time lines Accordingly
6.1. Prepare Wave plans
6.2. Timelines
7. Stage 4 : Project Plan - Optimize Project Plan.
8. IT Status
8.1. What ERP are they using and other legacy Solutions?
8.2. What is their technology Landscape
8.3. Able to provide Good, Clean Data from their current Data Sources?
8.4. Capability to Integrate and maintain Integrations?
9. Goals & Objectives
9.1. what do they want to achieve with Supplier automation
9.2. What are their business challenges?
9.2.1. What are their Value drivers.. Spend Compliance/Process Improvement/Cash Management/Price reduction
9.3. How do they want to measure the success, their KPI's?
10. Timelines
10.1. What is the planned SE Project start date?
10.2. Any Available wave plans, timelines?
10.3. Go live dates - SE Go live?, Product Go Live?
10.3.1. Planned Project Duration time